A Bad Idea

I know your trip and all, but are you saying she’s less American than a Kansan? Dubya “reflected problems average folks” faced too, didn’t he? Yeah, that helped.
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Compromise? Seriously?? We ain’t got no stinkin’ compromise!

“the Democrats need to find someone who reflects the middle of the country, and the problems average folks are facing in the middle of the country.”
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Please tell me you aren’t speaking geographically. That’s both a) condescending and b) silly in 2010 when people are less different by place on the map than ever.
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If you are speaking politically, after the Blue Dogs being shrunk on Tuesday, then that’s still silly. The position is House minority leader not Untied States leader.

“who reflects the middle of the country, and the problems average folks are facing in the middle of the country”
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I was done posting here, but this got me out of my brief, self-imposed retirement for one last comment, just so I can say, with all due sincerity, as a middle-class resident of a major metropolitan area and as a poor South Philly boy by birth:
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“&@#$ you, Joe.”
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NOW, I’m done.

How about Joe Klein? Nobody’s got their finger on the pulse of America more than the Village’s Biggest Weenie Roaster.

I take it that wasn’t meant as an invite….

the Democrats need to find someone who reflects the middle of the country, and the problems average folks are facing in the middle of the country.
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Assuming you’re not asking for some Democrat to dress up as a cowboy and talk about how awesome college football and Dancing With the Stars are, you must have certain policies in mind that would address these problems.
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A bigger stimulus program would address unemployment. A public option would help bring down the cost of health care and the deficit. Are these the policies you’re talking about? If not, which ones? For whichever policies you have in mind, would some other person do a better job enacting these policies than Pelosi? Why or why not? Cite specific examples.

In case my tone was too offending I really am curious.
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Respectfully, do you mean geographically or politically? And if the latter what do you believe to be the definition?

Why do you assert that Nancy Pelosi doesn’t understand the problems faced by average Americans in the middle of the country?

I nominate Anthony Weiner just to annoy you.

Since most congressional posts are governed by seniority, who do you have in mind exactly, Joe?

Jesus, how condescending can you get?

Hi, I live in the middle of the country, I’m “average folks,” my family and many others I know have been run over by the recession, and I happen to believe that real progressives actually understand the problems facing the whole country far better than the raft of fools my fellow “average” citizens elected.

And, btw, the people who supposedly “reflect” the “average folks” of my region caused this mess to begin with, so I’d just as soon we never hear from them again.

I’d rather have someone who can get sh!t done, wherever they come from. I require a brain and a backbone, not just a drawl like mine.

I don’t have a drawl, Minnesota here (is that middle of the country/flyover land?),and I had the exact same reaction.
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That’s why I was wondering if JK was using shorthand for “centrist”.

Joe, Hubert Humphrey was from the middle of the country. William Proxmire was from the middle of the country. Paul Wellstone was from the middle of the country.

Are you seriously saying Nancy Pelosi is more librul than those three men?

This is a conservatives wet dream. No one wanted Harry Reid to win but if there was going to be a disappointment let it be him. He’s a friggin disaster. I was certain Nancy would leave after the humiliation.

OK…I’ll bite. How about Marcy Kaptur from OH-09? A member of the Progressive caucus, longest standing female member of the house (so you’re not replacing the first female speaker with a white dude), serves an area that has been hard hit by manufacturing losses in our country, opposed NAFTA and the Bush-Paulson TARP bailouts. Yeah, she supported the Stupak amendment but maybe we can give her a pass on that..she is a Catholic, after all. I don’t know where she sits in the pecking order but here you have a female progressive who will satisfy Joe’s centrist/Broderite/Beltway desire to have somebody who “gets it”, a person from “real America” (TM) leading the Dems in the House.
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How’s this for humble, Middle American, upbringings?:
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“Kaptur, a Polish-American,[1] is a Toledo native. Her family operated a small grocery. Kaptur graduated from St. Ursula Academy in 1964 and became the first member in her family to attend college. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1968 and a master’s in urban planning from the University of Michigan in 1974. She did post-graduate study in urban planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981.
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Kaptur served on the Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions from 1969 to 1975 and was director of planning for the National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs (1975–1977) founded by the late Msgr. Geno Baroni. She later served as a domestic policy advisor during President Jimmy Carter’s Administration.”
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And she just defeated the Nazis! Well, one Nazi.
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Anyway, I love the fact that with half the Blue Dogs getting trounced on Tuesday and with only 5% of the progressive caucus losing, folks like Dan Boren and Joe Klein think the next Dem leader in the House should basically be a Blue Dog.

With the pro-America community having decimated the numbers of Democrats in Congress, Nancy Pelosi is much too right wing for those few remaining Democrats. Barney Frank, on the other hand, is right up their wheel house.

WGACA, Tex and your gang of I-hate-every-medium-’cept-Flox.

I was kind of wondering about that. How does Joe look at an election where Blue Dog Democrats were trounced (and basically cost the Democrats their majority) and then decide that they should be in charge?

What sue_n said. And, although I live in flyover land, we do have some major metropolitan areas. I live in one. Shucks, we’re not all sh!tkickers. And we don’t need someone who understands our special middle-average-American needs (whatever the hell that means), we need someone who can get something done for all of us.

Yeah, I strongly suspect “average folks in the middle of the country” being his way of saying “centrists.”
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And we see how well that’s worked out for us all.

Bill Smith, the third of five sons, was born and raised a Roman Catholic[5] in Detroit, Michigan by his parents Clida (née Martinez) and Leonard Smith, a social worker and a psychiatrist respectively.[3][6][7] Smith and three of his siblings became lawyers while the other became a doctor. One of his brothers is also the pastor of the Baptist “Church of the New Covenant” in Detroit.[6] Smith’s youth was influenced by the involvement of his family in the civil rights movement, including the work of his grandfather as a member of the NAACP in Louisiana.[3]
He graduated from the University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy in 1981 where he had been active in sports and the student senate.[6][8] At age 19, while attending Wayne State University in Detroit, Smith converted from Catholicism to Baptist, later giving the following explanation: “I can’t claim that I was the most observant Catholic at the time [of my conversion]. I had begun to really look around and ask myself about the social circumstances of the country, issues of justice, issues of change. When I looked at my spiritual life, and I looked at what might inform social change, justice in society… I found Baptism.” [9][10][11][12] After graduating with a B.A. in economics in 1987, he married his high school sweetheart[5] and moved to Minneapolis to attend the University of Minnesota Law School. While attending law school, Smith wrote several articles in support of Pat Robertson of the 700 Club, which caused controversy in his 2006 election campaign (see below). He graduated with a Juris Doctor in 1990.[13][14]
Smith and his wife Kim, a high school mathematics teacher,[15] have four children born between 1989 and 1997.[16] They have a daughter, Amirah; and three sons, Jeremiah, Elijah, and Isaiah.[15] Kim is not a Baptist, but their four children have been raised in that faith.[17] During Smith’s 2006 campaign, Kim Smith revealed that she has been living with “moderate” multiple sclerosis for several years.[18]
After law school Smith worked with the firm of Lindquist & Vennum for three years where he was a litigator specializing in civil rights, employment, and criminal defense law.[13][16] Smith then became executive director of the nonprofit Legal Rights Center in Minneapolis that specialized in the defense of indigent clients.[16] Upon leaving the Legal Rights Center, Smith entered private practice with the law firm Hassan & Reed Ltd, specializing in trial practice.[19]
In addition to his work for the Legal Rights Center, Smith has also been regularly involved in community service. He served as the unpaid host of a public affairs talk program at KMOJ radio.[16] He has also often volunteered as a track coach for several organizations, working with youth between the ages of 5 and 18. He said, “It’s a great community-building device because it’s for all ages and all genders. Everyone can find a way to fit in.”[16
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Seems pretty middle America to me.

Nicely done, Paul-NNTO.

Truth be told you are probably one the most anti-American people on this blog.

Middle of the country, like the midwest?

I guess Jan Schakowsky is who you mean, right, Joe?

Joe–This sounds just like another of those “real people of America” vs. the “New Elites” kind of attacks. You know better than that.

You’re letting the Republican Party demonization of Nancy Pelosi get to you. Don’t you think that Fox News/talk radio etc. will do exactly the same thing to whoever leads the Democrats in the House or Senate?

I think that Pelosi and Reid have no business being the public voice of Democrats in Congress; that task should be given over to others who are more articulate. But the truth is that both have done an excellent job leading their delegations in difficult circumnstances. Pelosi in particular reflects the best of the Democratic Party.

You should also remember that it is generally desirable that the leaders in Congress should have relatively safe seats, so that they can focus more on the national Party concerns. That’s in part why replacing Pelosi with someone from the Midwest isn’t such a great idea.

Thanks, but shame on me Elvis.
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No link.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Ellison_(politician)

A better idea: the Democrats need to find someone who reflects the middle of the country, and the problems average folks are facing in the middle of the country.

You don’t have the slightest effin’ clue.

Your have got to be crazy Joe.

How about Evan Bayh? Oh, my bad.

Give Joe a break. He has a lot of smart things to say, generally. Blogs are quick, off-the-top-of-one’s-head types of things.

So he had a brain fart.

Nancy Pelosi has been working tirelessly for everything that middle of the country people need. And people in the Bay area. And people on the East Coast. She’s demonized because of her geographic region and because she’s just_so_dammed_effective.

…the Democrats need to find someone who reflects the middle of the country.

In what ways did Pelosi not do that, Joe?

Can you compare the legislation passed through the House against what you’ve identified as middle America’s wish list of agenda items…some of which you have described as “wrong”, “emphasiz[ing] the short-term over the strategic.”

The one that’s funny is this one:

…[Dems] spent too much time on issues that either hurt the middle west middle class in the short-term (cap and trade)…

followed by:

There are issues, like climate change, that will have to be addressed by a responsible government whether folks in the middle of the country want to or not.

I mean, what the hell? You’re stating that we have all these issues we would like to have addressed, yet it seems that anyone who lifts a finger to do just that very thing gets pilloried.

Pelosi’s been a more effective leader than either Reid or Obama…and for being very successful in getting moderately positive legislation through the House, she’s been demonized by the straight media and this country’s right wing.

The only – only – rational argument against having Pelosi as Speaker again is just that – she’s been so thoroughly myth-ologized by the right into some boogeyman that the mere mention of her name brings up negative feelings…and that’s not right, but it’s there.

How about Eric Cantor?

Oh, I thought that was part of the performance. I had to use The Google to figure it out…

I know. Give DC that House seat they’ve always wanted, conditional on it going to David Broder, who also gets to be permanently Speaker. David Brooks can be his CoS.

That would certainly see that their town wouldn’t be trashed.

The link wasn’t for your benefit Elvis.

I’m guessing Joe has figured out by now this would be a negatory by most of us. Me, I think no matter how “liberal” nor how publicly unpopular, who can argue this lady knows how to get **** done.

Silly, contrived road trips notwithstanding, millionaire, centrist, pundits who have been living in the DC bubble for like forever don’t get to be the arbiters of “the middle of the country.” Perhaps it is you who is completely out of touch with average Americans (most Americans want most of the legislation that Pelosi got passed). Just retire already. One David Broder is one too many.

Didn’t JK say he doesn’t respond to hyperbole but does wade in to comments when the questions are substantive?
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We ask only for clarity.

I agree. The Dems need to stand up to these jerks, not find someone that will “work” with them.

“…most Americans want most of the legislation that Pelosi got passed…
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As evidenced by Tuesday’s election results….

Here’s a substantive question:

In a Congress populated by the upper-middle class or greater, just who do you have in mind to “reflect … the problems average folks are facing in the middle of the country”?
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I don’t think there is anyone – Democrat, Republican, Independent – in the House who fits this criteria. I certainly could be wrong, but I look forward to Joe Klein’s enlightened guidance to help find these allegedly-real people.

I’m rooting for Sean Hannity.

Joe Klein you are a fool. There I said it. You must be off your “I am a liberal” meme.
As a “real” American and a woman, I can’t tell you how proud I am of Nancy Pelosi. Every challenge Obama brought to her she met and was instrumental in getting as much of his agenda accomplished as she could. She bent to the middle when she had too. I suspect you would be thrilled with Steny Hoyer.
Nominations please?
Joe, you give us your preference and let us judge. I suspect you would prefer some gutless wonder who would pull Obama even more to the right.

“A better idea: the Democrats need to find someone who reflects the middle of the country, and the problems average folks are facing in the middle of the country.”
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What problems do we have here in the “middle” that are different from the problems that other Americans are facing?
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And people in San Francisco aren’t “average” folks? I was stationed in Monterey for three years, I met many people from San Francisco who weren’t any different than the people in Nebraska.
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Nancy Pelosi represents “average” America just as well as any Republican.

apr2563, I’m with you. I still remember how I felt when Pelosi was elected speaker, and how absolutely thrilled I was to have not only a woman speaker, but an intelligent, gutsy, liberal woman at that. (Consider that the woman who “represents” me is KBH, or Cheerleader Barbie.)
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Since then, I’ve seen and heard NP absolutely vilified as a partisan hack, shrew, b!tch, and so on by the very same people who worship Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh, Palin, and my own district’s contribution to the toxic pool, Louie Gohmert. The double standard just floors me.
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I even got my husband on this one (he still has Republican loyalties which I am slowly weaning him from). He called Pelosi “a shrew,” and I reminded him that she has never said anything that I haven’t said, and that I’ve actually probably said worse. When I asked if that made me a shrew, he wisely rethought and recanted. While our daughters snickered.
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Boehner isn’t fit to polish her gavel.

Think Joe lives in NYC, but the bubble is elastic. Otherwise, spot-on.

Even if you lived in a cardboard box in Boise, to look at an election loss caused by economic disaster created by “conservatives” and centrists and the failure to take bold action in response, because of “conservatives” and centrists, and conclude that liberals should pay the price, demonstrates nothing short of a mental disorder.

I’m from the middle of the country, and even I found this post condescending and out of touch. I don’t want another Blue Dog, I want someone who knows what they stand for, isn’t afraid to say it, and gets **** done. I want someone to fight the right-wing noise machine, not buckle under to it.
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Apologies to any whose points I have repeated. But, man, I can’t think of worse advice: “Surrender your principles and become Republican Lite.” Jeebus wept.

I nominate the gavel.

To put it in shorter form, I need political advice from Joe Klein like I need an assh*le in my elbow.

@ 3.0 I have enjoyed your posts. Please do not let a wingnut troll influence your continued participation in the dialog. Many here have lamented about the spineless, weak kneed democrats in Congress who give up with a hard stare from the right. Do not join these people who lack the backbone to stand up for what needs to be done to help their fellow countrymen. This is a long term endeavor for “Everyday Americans(tm)” who really care about the USA.

In all due respect… Obama needs at least one figure head for his liberal base. You are asking for Obama to be totally castrated. That is bad, bad advise. I suggest he hire Howard Dean as well. His base needs something to believe in. It sure the hell is not him these days. You see.. he does not stand up for his base. He lets the right smear them. Do you really think his base is going to continue to stand up for him? Clinton got bills no more pure passed.. but he stood up for himself.. and by doing so stood up for the people who voted for him. Obama needs to learn that lesson. He can be open to finding middle ground.. but when the right call him a communist or socialist he needs to fire back.. “The hell I am.” He needs to draw a line in the sand. He has to set limits to what he allows. He will be standing up for every democrat if he does so. He will also earn the respect of the middle. People like a strong fair leader. Strong.

JK: Did you notice that no one gave you any “Nominations” “who reflect the middle of the country, and the problems average folks are facing in the middle of the country.” Read the comments. You’ve been told: You are out of touch.

You mean someone who will reach across to aisle to cut taxes for rich folks, privatize social security, and shut down the Federal government? You know, the sort of things that will help average working Americans.

So, you liberals that don’t want to compromise, will you shut up and stop asking the other side to compromise. The definition of compromise is that both sides give something. Since you don’t want to do that, don’t complain when the other side doesn’t do anything you want. That’s the way it’s going to be.

Paul:
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Your statement about geography is pure bull and you know it. The coasts are not hurting as bad as the Midwest or South with the current economic conditions.
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I won’t act like a liberal and call you a racist here (because it would actually make less sense than calling the tea parties racist) but are you some sort of dogdang geographist? I think you just might be you damn geographist!
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There, now I make exactly as much sense as the anti-racists rants against conservatives.

“Your statement about geography is pure bull and you know it. The coasts are not hurting as bad as the Midwest or South with the current economic conditions.”
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Please explain what you mean.

Klein sounds like he is bucking for a job on Palin’s presidential run to represent “real” Americans, who unlike those of us who live in big cities, near water, do not hate their country.

I’m not sure what the comment means either but I want to address this:
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“The coasts are not hurting as bad as the Midwest or South with the current economic conditions.”
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10 Lowest State Unemployment Rates, September 2010 (source – BLS….most recent data available):
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NORTH DAKOTA 3.7 (Red State, Real America TM)
SOUTH DAKOTA 4.4 (Red State, Real America TM))
NEBRASKA 4.6 ((Red State, Real America TM)
NEW HAMPSHIRE 5.5 (Liberal hellhole)
VERMONT 5.8 (Liberal hellhole)
HAWAII 6.3 (Barely part of America)
KANSAS 6.6 (Red State, Middle America TM)
IOWA 6.8 (Part liberal hellhole, part Real America TM)
VIRGINIA 6.8 (Back to being a Red State, Real America TM)
WYOMING 6.8 (Land of Cheney and Real Men, Real America X 10 TM)
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10 Highest State Unemployment Rates, September 201
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NEVADA 14.4 (Swing state, just re-elected the spawn of Satan himself)
MICHIGAN 13 (Blue state)
CALIFORNIA 12.4 (Liberal Hellhole X 50….Land of the Evil Pelosi)
FLORIDA 11.9 (Back to being a Red State but does not qualify as Real America TM because it’s on the coast and has a lot of transplanted Yankees)
RHODE ISLAND 11.5 (Blue state, semi-Liberal Hellhole)
SOUTH CAROLINA 11 (Real America TM, darn it!…even if it is on the coast)
OREGON 10.6 (Hippie land)
INDIANA 10.1 (Back to Red, Real America TM)
KENTUCKY 10.1 (Real America TM)
GEORGIA 10 (Real America, except for Atlanta)
OHIO 10 (Swing stage)
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Would you look at that….the unemployment rate in California is one of the highest (#3) in the nation. But Pelosi just isn’t in touch with the problems facing Real Americans TM, I guess

Thanks for that effort, og

I live in NJ and the economy stinks here. Unemployment is at 9.4 percent, higher than it is in many Real American (TM) states. But I guess, based on Joe’s reading of things, that we here in the Garden State just can’t know what it’s like because, I don’t know, we can drive to the ocean? My train goes by a shuttered steel plant every day. It also goes by the former site – now a large empty piece of land -of a huge GM plant. Several miles down the road from that is another large, empty piece of land that used to house a huge Ford plant. These – and there are many more – were in operation not too long ago. But because we tend to vote Democratic, because we’re right next door to Gomorrah on the Hudson, and because NJ is a blue state, we can’t know what the problems of “real Americans” are like.
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Joe, seriously, this is offensive. It offends me, as a “coastal resident” and it should offend Nancy Pelosi as a US Representative from a state that has the third highest unemployment rate in the nation. You don’t have to have a Waffle House around the corner to know what economic pain feels like. It is media figures like you who do more to further the myth that only the middle of our country is “real”, that they are the only people who “get it”, than demagogues like Palin and Gingrich. You amplify what they say by 11 by repeating their BS and lending their Real America elitist statements credibility by posting comments like the ones you made above.

The HCR law, the signature legislation of the last Congress, was identical to Bob Dole’s plan of the ’90s and Mitt Romney’s plan of the ’00s.

It could not have been more centrist.

Pelosi was responsible for its passage.

Therefore Pelosi must represent centrists.

That said I want Pelosi and Reid out because it’s time for fresh faces. Those faces, however, should be progressive.

Couldn’t agree more.

Are you seriously saying Nancy Pelosi is more librul than those three men?

Read more: http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/11/05/a-bad-idea/#ixzz14Vn4wvhu

This post is generally reflective of the intellect of the “pro Pelosi” crowd.

If you want to get “*&^%^&” done, I’d also suggest someone slightly less arrogant and omniscient.

liberalmeltdown, Tell you what… the democrats will replace Nancy with a moderate democrat found in the south if you replace Boehner with a republican moderate like Snowe.

We will compromise if you will. But you see.. republicans never play fair. Honest compromise seems like rape to them.

And I really wish Joe, would also stand up and say Boehner needs to be replaced with a moderate republican because he has said far too many things that are no less than slander against not only Obama but all democrats who support moderate social services found in things like public libraries, public schools and public healthcare. Both public schools and libraries were founded by our founding fathers. Conservative founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson. Public social services services are found in our National parks and Firemen and Veteran hospitals. Sugessting we extend social service to healthcare does not make democrats communist. It does not make us socialist.. anymore than our founding fathers were.
Thomas Jefferson used the Declaration of Independence as a model as to why we should have socialized schooling. He said it was a matter of the Americans people liberty to be educated.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

It is the right of the people to be healthy. Health and health care go hand in hand. It is an easier case to make than explaining education equals liberty. Just because people support an idea that is not objectionable by our founding fathers, but objectionable to current republican party, does not make democrats or Obama a communist or socialist.
Obama needs to be strong and fair. Fair and strong. He needs to come our HARD against slander. That does not mean he is suppressing free speech.. it means he is defending his base against ignorance and slander. He needs to call it what it is.. when it is used against him and his supporters. The middle will respect a man who respects himself.
Nancy and Boehner have both been fire breathers. Don’t just call out Nancy. Boohiss, Joe.

“We will compromise if you will. But you see.. republicans never play fair. Honest compromise seems like rape to them.”
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Yeah, you seem like someone sensible. I’m kidding, in case you didn’t know.

ogliberal in Klein’s epistemology truth is found at the mid-point between two dots on a line, even when the two dots are moving along the line, while maintaining equidistant from each other, of course.
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He applies his epistemology to the real-world through analogy. Therefore, the only people who know the truth live in the middle of the country.
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I don’t think it has to do with living near water. Water just happens to be at the extremes of his metaphor.

Seriously. But textee thinks that the best way to show how much you love America is to show how much you hate Americans. It’s an interesting concept.